History Music / MartinaMcBride

* DownerEnding: Yeah, that girl who's a victim of child abuse in "Concrete Angel"? [[spoiler:She dies in the middle of the song. But hey, she gets an angel statue for her gravestone!]]

** In "Independence Day," the last verse mentions sending the then-child singer to the "county home," implying that her mother burned down the home with both her and her abusive husband inside.

* DrivenToSuicide: One possible interpretation of the last verse of "A Broken Wing" ("''He went up to the bedroom / Found a note by the window / With the curtains blowin' in the breeze''").

* IsntItIronic: "Independence Day" is subject to this, often getting played during patriotic holidays despite its actual theme of escaping an abusive relationship.

* YourCheatingHeart: "Cheap Whiskey" is about a man who is driven to drink after getting outed in an affair.

* CerebusSyndrome: From about ''Emotion'' onward, almost everything she did was a dead-serious "issue" song along the lines of "A Broken Wing". Among them: "Love's the Only House" (a general message of comfort to people in need), "Concrete Angel" (child abuse), "In My Daughter's Eyes" (messages of worldly positivity filtered through a child), "God's Will" (about a handicapped kid showing her how to love), "Anyway" (a vaguely religious-themed empowerment anthem), and "I'm Gonna Love You Through It" (breast cancer). Even when she does do an uptempo, it's almost invariably big, anthemic and life-empowering ("Ride", "Wrong Baby Wrong"), about domestic bliss ("Blessed", "I Just Call You Mine"), or both ("This One's for the Girls"). This is also an example of IssueDrift.

* DrivenToSuicide: It's somewhat ambiguous, but the final verse of "A Broken Wing" seems to suggest this is what happened to the song's protagonist after a long period of unbearable emotional abuse from her husband. (The lyrics could also be interpreted to mean that the protagonist ran off to start a new life.)

* IsntItIronic: "Independence Day" is often subject to this, often getting played during patriotic holidays despite its actual theme of escaping an abusive relationship.

* MixedMetaphor: In "Ride":
-->Life is a roller coaster ride\\
Time turns the wheel and love collides

* {{Retraux}}: ''Timeless'' was deliberately recorded as an homage to 1960s and 1970s country, with less polished production to make it feel more authentic.
* SelfEmpowermentAnthem: "This One's For The Girls"

* AdvertisedExtra: Jim Brickman was credited for his piano playing on "Valentine". Justified in that Brickman is not a vocalist, and the song was originally from one of his albums before being added to one of hers.

[=McBride's=] hot streak continued through 2004, including additional #1 hits in "Wrong Again", "I Love You" (her longest-lasting, at six weeks), and "Blessed". She also topped the AC charts in 2004 with "This One's for the Girls". After a 2005 detour to traditional-country covers on 2005's ''Timeless'', she continued scoring lesser degrees of hits into 2010, when the underperformance of her ''Shine'' album led to her leaving RCA in favor of [[Creator/BigMachineRecords Republic Nashville]]. Her only Republic album, ''Eleven'', fared little better, so she moved to Kobalt to release another covers album, ''Everlasting'', in 2014.

I want to fall and know that love has caught me,

* ''[[ChristmasSongs It's the Holiday Season]]'' (2018)

* CerebusSyndrome: From the late 90s onward, almost everything she did was a dead-serious "issue" song along the lines of "A Broken Wing". Among them: "Love's the Only House" (a general message of comfort to people in need), "Concrete Angel" (child abuse), "In My Daughter's Eyes" (self explanatory), "God's Will" (about a handicapped kid showing her how to love), "Anyway" (a vaguely religious-themed empowerment anthem), and "I'm Gonna Love You Through It" (breast cancer). Even when she does do an uptempo, it's almost invariably big, anthemic and life-empowering ("Ride", "Wrong Baby Wrong"), about domestic bliss ("Blessed", "I Just Call You Mine"), or both ("This One's for the Girls"). This is also an example of IssueDrift.

* IsntItIronic: "Independence Day" is often subject to this, by people who ignore that the song is actually about a young girl witnessing a woman escaping an abusive relationship by burning down her husband's house.

* RereleaseTheSong: "Valentine", a duet with pianist Jim Brickman, was originally released only to pop radio in 1997, but after it got some airplay on country stations, it was re-sent to country in 1998.

[=McBride's=] hot streak continued through 2004, including additional #1 hits in "Wrong Again", "I Love You" (her longest-lasting, at six weeks), and "Blessed". She also topped the AC charts in 2004 with "This One's for the Girls". After a 2005 detour to traditional-country covers on 2005's ''Timeless'', she continued scoring lesser degrees of hits into 2010, when the underperformance of her ''Shine'' album led to her leaving RCA in favor of Republic Nashville. Her only Republic album, ''Eleven'', fared little better, so she moved to Kobalt to release another covers album, ''Everlasting'', in 2014.

* ''[[ChristmasSongs White Christmas]]'' (1998)

* AbusiveParents: Present in both "Independence Day" and "Concrete Angel".
* AdvertisedExtra: Jim Brickman was credited for his piano playing on "Valentine". Justified in that Brickman is a vocalist, and the song was originally from one of his albums before being added to one of hers.

* ReCut: Happened to White Christmas several times. Originally released in 1998 with ten tracks, it was re-released in 1999 with two additional tracks inserted in the middle. It was re-released again in 2007 with four more tracks added in, and a reordered tracklist, and again in 2013 with one of the 2007 tracks replaced by a cover of Blue Christmas that she originally recorded for a posthumous Elvis Presley duets album, and a re-reordered tracklist.

* MelismaticVocals: From about "A Broken Wing" onward, she seemed determined to let you know that yes, she ''is'' a soprano. Admittedly one with a big range — that song has her going as low as F♯3 (the F♯ below Middle C), a note that not many sopranos can hit.

Born Martina Schiff in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, [=McBride=] got her start in a family band, before moving to Nashville in 1991. She sold merchandise for Music/GarthBrooks before signing with RCA in 1992. Although none of the singles off her first album made much of a dent, she got her first Top 5 hit in 1993 with "My Baby Loves Me", off her second album, ''The Way That I Am''. The album also included one of her most famous songs, "Independence Day", a controversial song about domestic abuse as seen from the victim's daughter's standpoint.

* MelismaticVocals: From about "A Broken Wing" onward, she seemed determined to let you know that yes, she ''is'' a soprano. Admittedly one with a big range — that song has her going as low as the F-sharp below Middle C, a note that not many sopranos can hit.

* MelismaticVocals: From about "A Broken Wing" onward, she seemed determined to let you know that yes, she ''is'' a soprano.
** Although one with a very wide range - "Teenage Daughters", for one, is a song that goes down to the F below middle C; how many sopranos would you get to sing that?

* '"Waking Up Laughing'' (2007)